Does this mean war?
Around the world, many clearly believe the US government invented the whole assassination scenario to justify going to war with Iran.
But when some conspiracy theorists tried that out on Vice President Joe Biden, saying the United States was accusing Iran of plotting an act of war, Biden quickly disabused them of that. He said flatly that a plot to kill a foreign citizen on American soil was not casus belli or an action that would legally justify the United States going to war.
It is noteworthy that no prominent Republicans reacting to the plot news has called for war or a military attack on Iran. GOP presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry both reacted to the news by speaking of the need for more security on the Mexican-American border to prevent assassins from coming across. The negative reaction to the Iraq war of President George W. Bush is so strong even among firm Republicans that no GOP candidates are pumping for war.
Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been very direct about what they want to do to punish the Islamic Republic for this plot. They have both said they want more UN sanctions on Iran and better enforcement of existing UN sanctions against Iran.
US officials are being dispatched to a number of countries viewed as lax in enforcing sanctions to tout this assassination plot and try to use it to embarrass other countries into more tightly enforcing existing sanctions.
But what new sanctions might be proposed? The United States has not produced any draft yet and is clearly still feeling out the other permanent members of the UN Security Council.
US officials, however, are talking a great deal about hitting the Central Bank of Iran with sanctions that bar anyone from doing business with it. This is viewed as the “nuclear option” of sanctions. It would make it very hard for anyone to pay for purchases of Iran oil. Some analysts say such a sanction would be almost as good as an outright ban on Iranian exports.
Even a unilateral US sanction on the Central Bank would be powerful because anyone doing business with that bank would then be cut off from the US financial system, a disabling blow for any major bank or company.
Republicans in Congress have long pushed for such a sanction being imposed unilaterally by the United States. The Obama Administration and the Bush Administration before it both considered sanctioning Bank Markazi, the Central Bank of Iran, but dropped the idea because they judged that the global reaction to such a harsh action would be so negative as to do more harm to the United States than to Iran.
But with the Islamic Republic tabbed for trying to murder a foreign ambassador, there are now hopes that more countries will find sanctioning Bank Markazi to be attractive.
For one thing, those who will have major input in developing their country’s position will be diplomats—the very class of people most likely to be most offended by a plot to kill a diplomat.
But the bottom line in sanctions remains the position of Moscow. Whatever Moscow accepts is certain to be in a UN sanctions resolution. Whatever it objects to will not make it into a resolution. China has not been a major factor in the drafting of the past four UN sanctions resolutions. It has essentially just followed in Moscow’s footsteps.
US officials say Washington hasn’t ruled out the possibility of imposing unilateral sanctions on Bank Markazi if enough other major countries would follow the US lead—but the UN route is obviously preferred.
Many countries will be worried about the price of their oil imports should much Iranian oil be removed from the market, and thus be reluctant to approve any Bank Markazi sanctions—especially in a severe economic downturn. US officials know that global oil production must surge to replace Iranian oil to win support for such sanctions. That means Saudi Arabia (and probably Kuwait and the UAE) must first pledge to pump all out.
Thus far, they have been silent. Without a doubt, they are weighing the risk that Iran will attack their oil installations and tankers if they make life so hot for the Islamic Republic.