Move Quickly On Iran Sanctions
04/05/2010
Boston Globe	
Original Source: – HYPERLINK http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0302/Bluster-at-UN-Human-Rights-Council-as-US-and-Iran-trade-barbs http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/04/05/move_quickly_on_iran_sanctions/

THE OBAMA administration has been pushing hard for tougher UN Security Council sanctions on Iran, while Congress has been hammering out its own list of unilateral US sanctions. Yet hawks and doves alike commonly presume that sanctions aren t enough to compel Iran to forgo its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In the face of Iran s defiance of the international community, sanctions feel like a squirt gun rather than a rifle.
There have been recent signs, however, that these assumptions may be wrong. The embattled Iranian regime may be much more vulnerable to the deprivations that go along with economic isolation than its leaders pretend. The Obama administration and the United Nations should press ahead on sanctions as a prod for a negotiated deal that removes the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
The mere prospect of tougher restrictions on trade with Iran has already caused many companies to cease doing business there. Two major insurance companies, Lloyds and Munich Re, have said they will no longer insure cargo going into or out of Iran. Major oil brokers have declared they will stop delivering desperately needed refined petroleum to Iran. And Shell, Total, and BP have decided to stop supplying gas for cars in Iran.
Asian companies may help fill the breach, but Iran s costs for basic economic activities are rising steeply. Even China, the Security Council member most insistent on weakening the proposed new round of UN sanctions, has preemptively cut its purchases of Iranian crude oil by half in the past year.
Iran s leaders, already coping with severe internal dissention, are not as indifferent as they pretend. Until now, the regime has insisted that sanctions only make it more determined to refuse demands for proof that its nuclear program will be used for peaceful purposes. But last month the head of Iran s Atomic Energy Organization proposed a swap of 60 percent of Iran s low-enriched uranium for fuel rods of a type that could not be used for a weapon. The offer is not comprehensive enough to satisfy the international community. But it opens the way for more bargaining, and it suggests Iran s rulers are feeling the hot breath of new sanctions on their necks.