to Congress to try to postpone legislation targeting gasoline sales to Iran.
The point is that Obama wants UN sanctions, not unilateral American sanctions.
The first meeting of the major powers to discuss the elements of a UN sanctions resolution was held at the United Nations March 31. That appears to have worried the Islamic Republic as almost every day since then some Iranian official has made some comment disparaging sanctions and laughing them off. One common theme is that the more sanctions that are approved the better it is for Iran because it helps the Iranian people become more self-reliant.
President Ahmadi-nejad Saturday discussed the possibility of unilateral American gasoline sanctions. “They [Americans] said they want to impose fuel sanctions,” he said. “They don’t understand that they work in our favor. They imagine we will get upset should they refuse to sell us gasoline.… No, we immediately tell experts to produce it.” But Iran has already announced a plan to build new refineries and officials have said they will make Iran independent of gasoline imports by 2013. In recent weeks, officials have been insisting Iran could produce enough gasoline for domestic needs in just weeks.
But Obama isn’t pushing gasoline sanctions. He is trying to stop them.
The Hill, a newspaper that covers activities in Congress, says White House staff members have been working the last six weeks to stop legislation to impose U.S. sanctions on foreign firms that sell gasoline to Iran.
The newspaper said the Administration was telling members of Congress the legislation might anger foreign governments and make it harder to win approval for UN sanctions. William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which opposes sanctions, said most members of Congress are willing to give the president more time, but not an infinite amount of time.
The Senate and House have each passed gasoline sanctions bills. Since they are different texts, members from both chambers must be appointed to iron out the differences between the two bills. That hasn’t yet happened.
The Hill said many members expected the issue to become red hot during the annual conference in Washington earlier this month of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). While a lot was said about Iran at the conference, the sanctions legislation did not get much attentio0n.
In the past two weeks, Obama has ratcheted up the rhetoric on Iran. Some political analysts think that is actually meant to satisfy hardliners in Congress and slow down the train carrying unilateral sanctions legislation.
Obama said, “My hope is that we are going to get this [UN sanctions} done this spring. So, I’m not interested in waiting months for a sanctions regime to be in place. I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks.”
That, however, contradicted his secretary of state, who recently said sanctions would probably not come before the UN until the summer. It is believed that diplomats want to wait until after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has visited Iran in June. Taking action before he visits would likely guarantee a no vote by Brazil on sanctions. If he visits and makes no progress, Brazil is more likely to vote yes or at least abstain, they say.
An unnamed U.S. official told The Washington Post it was hoped to have a vote in the UN Security Council this month. But the Security Council has issued its April agenda and Iran isn’t on it.
Meanwhile, Yukiya Amano, the new director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicated he would prefer that there be no new sanctions.
“As Iran quite often declares, they don’t want to act under pressure,” he said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur. He said he was afraid that more sanctions would anger Iran and make it more difficult for his inspectors to do their job in the short run. He also said that Iran has done nothing at all to comply with his requests since he became director general four months ago.
China, meanwhile, announced that it would join the five other major powers in discussing possible new sanctions. Most of the media hailed this as a major development, saying it meant that China now supported sanctions. But foreign policy analysts said that was not necessarily true. One said, “China may just have decided to take a seat at the table so it can work hard to kill any real sanctions. It may fear that if it isn’t at the table, tougher sanctions may be drafted and it will face a decision over whether to veto them publicly.” Chinese officials have publicly refused to say that the decision to join the talks means China is willing to accept some sanctions.
Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, flew to Beijing for talks last week and came away praising close ties between Iran and China. The one specific he cited was that China had even agreed to attend a conference on non-proliferation that Iran is sponsoring for later this month to attack the major powers for doing too little on disarmament. That was too much for China, which said Jalili was wrong and that China had only said it would think about Iran’s invitation.
Last week, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made a visit to three countries in Africa. One stop was in Gabon, which is one of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council this year.