(Glenn Kessler-Washington Post).The 12-to-2 vote in the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to impose a modest tightening of sanctions on Iran poses a conundrum: How could an administration that spent months reaching out to Iran and its allies to build international unity end up with a worse result than when George W. Bush was president?
Bush refused to engage with Iran, his administration was perceived as acting unilaterally in international affairs, and his U.N. ambassador was John R. Bolton, who once famously said he wanted to eliminate 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters. But not a single Security Council resolution on Iran passed on Bush's watch contained a dissenting vote.
By contrast, President Obama had argued that engagement from the start would persuade Iran to negotiate seriously and if that did not happen, would demonstrate that Tehran was the problem, not Washington. Yet Turkey, a NATO ally, and Brazil, a major regional power, voted against Wednesday's resolution. Lebanon, a beneficiary of U.S. aid, abstained.
The resolution was also far weaker than the administration originally had hoped for, in part because U.S. officials had to pay a high price to win Russian and Chinese cooperation. U.S. sanctions were ended against Russian firms that had been linked to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, and China's economic interests in Iran were walled off from the sanctions. After weeks of talks, the list of Iranian entities and individuals named in an international blacklist grew modestly.
The administration's critics say the uncertain result stems from U.S. weakness in international diplomacy, while its defenders say Obama inherited a weak hand from Bush.
"It is ironic that Bush had a far better record at the U.N. than Obama, as there was a unanimous UNSC vote under Bush, and Obama has lost it," said Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser under Bush. He said the reason is not that the Iranians' behavior has improved, because "the clock keeps ticking, and Iran gets closer and closer to a bomb." The reason, Abrams said, "is simply that American weakness has created a vacuum, and other states are trying to step into it."
Bolton argues that the administration's willingness to operate within the U.N. system left it at a negotiating disadvantage. "Everyone believes the Obama administration is joined at the hip to the council, which is a position of negotiating weakness," he said. "Weakness produces today's result."
Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that "the sanctions vote serves notice that the process of building a case against Iran in the international community is continuing." He noted that nonaligned nations refused to back Iran at a recent review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that Brazil's and Turkey's "no" votes Wednesday were widely anticipated.
"All these developments seem to indicate right now that the NAM group of countries is not a bloc which Iran can count on for support at crucial decision making moments," Hibbs said.
"Clearly the world is not unified in opposing Iran's nuclear posture," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But it won't hide the fact that Iran's diplomacy with Brazil and Turkey wasn't able to avoid the new Security Council sanctions or to break China and Russia away from the U.S.-led posse."
Nevertheless, it took the administration 16 months to reach this point, during which time Iran added to its stockpile of enriched uranium and even began to enrich at higher levels. In the meantime, Obama wrote two letters to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and tried hard to win Tehran's agreement on a confidence-building measure. The administration also exposed the existence of a secret Iranian facility near the city of Qom, which it said demonstrated anew how Iran was deceiving the world about its nuclear ambitions.
None of that seemed to matter to the dissenters at the council. Turkey and Brazil, in fact, took the administration's confidence-building measure -- a swap of nuclear material for an Iranian medical research reactor -- and revived it last month over U.S. objections. So in this case, one of the administration's efforts at engagement may have backfired.
The administration might have won the same result -- or even better -- if it had moved for new sanctions last year. Brazil and Lebanon are new members on the council this year. Brazil replaced Costa Rica, which is very amenable to American persuasion. Lebanon replaced Libya, which had actually supported a sanctions resolution on Iran in 2008. Lebanon's government includes members of Hezbollah, which is closely linked to Iran, and might have been expected to also vote "no," though it may have been swayed by a phone call from Clinton to Lebanese president Michel Suleiman on Wednesday morning.
Administration officials insist the U.N. vote represents just the first stage of a widening web of sanctions that will be imposed by the European Union and others. But unless China seriously joins the effort, that could mean that the United States and its allies are just opening up Iran to extensive Chinese investment.
Moreover, the sanctions are simply intended to bring Iran back to the bargaining table. Iran for years has shrugged off all pressure to negotiate on its nuclear program. The "no" votes cast by Turkey and Brazil might embolden Tehran to keep standing firm.
Bush refused to engage with Iran, his administration was perceived as acting unilaterally in international affairs, and his U.N. ambassador was John R. Bolton, who once famously said he wanted to eliminate 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters. But not a single Security Council resolution on Iran passed on Bush's watch contained a dissenting vote.
By contrast, President Obama had argued that engagement from the start would persuade Iran to negotiate seriously and if that did not happen, would demonstrate that Tehran was the problem, not Washington. Yet Turkey, a NATO ally, and Brazil, a major regional power, voted against Wednesday's resolution. Lebanon, a beneficiary of U.S. aid, abstained.
The resolution was also far weaker than the administration originally had hoped for, in part because U.S. officials had to pay a high price to win Russian and Chinese cooperation. U.S. sanctions were ended against Russian firms that had been linked to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, and China's economic interests in Iran were walled off from the sanctions. After weeks of talks, the list of Iranian entities and individuals named in an international blacklist grew modestly.
The administration's critics say the uncertain result stems from U.S. weakness in international diplomacy, while its defenders say Obama inherited a weak hand from Bush.
"It is ironic that Bush had a far better record at the U.N. than Obama, as there was a unanimous UNSC vote under Bush, and Obama has lost it," said Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser under Bush. He said the reason is not that the Iranians' behavior has improved, because "the clock keeps ticking, and Iran gets closer and closer to a bomb." The reason, Abrams said, "is simply that American weakness has created a vacuum, and other states are trying to step into it."
Bolton argues that the administration's willingness to operate within the U.N. system left it at a negotiating disadvantage. "Everyone believes the Obama administration is joined at the hip to the council, which is a position of negotiating weakness," he said. "Weakness produces today's result."
Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that "the sanctions vote serves notice that the process of building a case against Iran in the international community is continuing." He noted that nonaligned nations refused to back Iran at a recent review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that Brazil's and Turkey's "no" votes Wednesday were widely anticipated.
"All these developments seem to indicate right now that the NAM group of countries is not a bloc which Iran can count on for support at crucial decision making moments," Hibbs said.
"Clearly the world is not unified in opposing Iran's nuclear posture," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But it won't hide the fact that Iran's diplomacy with Brazil and Turkey wasn't able to avoid the new Security Council sanctions or to break China and Russia away from the U.S.-led posse."
Nevertheless, it took the administration 16 months to reach this point, during which time Iran added to its stockpile of enriched uranium and even began to enrich at higher levels. In the meantime, Obama wrote two letters to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and tried hard to win Tehran's agreement on a confidence-building measure. The administration also exposed the existence of a secret Iranian facility near the city of Qom, which it said demonstrated anew how Iran was deceiving the world about its nuclear ambitions.
None of that seemed to matter to the dissenters at the council. Turkey and Brazil, in fact, took the administration's confidence-building measure -- a swap of nuclear material for an Iranian medical research reactor -- and revived it last month over U.S. objections. So in this case, one of the administration's efforts at engagement may have backfired.
The administration might have won the same result -- or even better -- if it had moved for new sanctions last year. Brazil and Lebanon are new members on the council this year. Brazil replaced Costa Rica, which is very amenable to American persuasion. Lebanon replaced Libya, which had actually supported a sanctions resolution on Iran in 2008. Lebanon's government includes members of Hezbollah, which is closely linked to Iran, and might have been expected to also vote "no," though it may have been swayed by a phone call from Clinton to Lebanese president Michel Suleiman on Wednesday morning.
Administration officials insist the U.N. vote represents just the first stage of a widening web of sanctions that will be imposed by the European Union and others. But unless China seriously joins the effort, that could mean that the United States and its allies are just opening up Iran to extensive Chinese investment.
Moreover, the sanctions are simply intended to bring Iran back to the bargaining table. Iran for years has shrugged off all pressure to negotiate on its nuclear program. The "no" votes cast by Turkey and Brazil might embolden Tehran to keep standing firm.