Too high a price

By BENNY AVNI
June 9, 2010
NY Post
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/too_high_price_9E4OdZTlLb0lV1OmYf24LL

With the UN Security Council at long last set to vote today on the newest American-proposed package of sanctions on Iran, it's worth looking at what the Obama administration paid to get this far. 
Simply put: America opted to pay other Security Council members top dollar, and up front, to gain the modest victory it will declare after today's vote. 
The administration has long stressed the legitimacy that a united Security Council can confer on a biting sanctions regime. Achieving such priceless unity, goes the argument, was worth making some concessions. 
Except the Security Council certainly isn't united, so to get to a common front, the US had to compromise away most of the proposed bite. Yes, the new sanctions will tighten past restrictions on Iran, making it much more difficult to ship in suspected nuclear-related items. But we had to pay for that. 
Start with China, which from the start advertised its displeasure with the idea of sanctions. To get Beijing on board, US negotiators had to drop some of the toughest ideas, including the demand to end foreign investment in Iran's energy sector. That will leave China free to help Iran deal with its lack of refining capacity -- probably its greatest economic vulnerability. 
Meanwhile, to woo Moscow, President Obama early on killed the Bush-era plan to deploy missile-defense stations in the Czech Republic and Poland. His defenders said Obama never really believed in land-based missile defense anyway -- so he wasn't giving up anything he wanted, anyway, and pleasing Russia with that unilateral concession would surely help later with negotiations on Iran. 
But Moscow pocketed the gift, then asked for further bilateral concessions before it would sign on to Washington's self-declared reset policy. 
And in negotiations over sanctions, Russia made sure that its Iran interests would remain intact. Indeed, it got the biggest sanction-exemption of all: Moscow can sell Tehran S-300 surface-to-air missiles, which would significantly complicate any air attack on Iran's nuclear facilities -- the most likely military answer to the problem. 
Then there were the concessions that the Obama team forced Israel to pay. In the name of getting Arab and Muslim countries on board for Iran sanctions, the US admonished Israeli leaders for months to cease all construction in disputed areas, tame military responses to provocations and improve the standard of living in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. 
Most ominously, America last month went along with a call by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signatories for Israel to end the nuclear ambiguity policy at the heart of its defense doctrine. Meanwhile, the parley failed to mention repeated violations of the NPT by a nation that is a signatory -- Iran. 
Obama then faintly denounced the naming of Israel in the NPT document (which his envoys had just voted for), while his advisers hinted -- again -- that this would help get Arab and Muslim countries to back the meaningful Security Council vote. 
Yet Lebanon, the only Arab country on the Security Council, won't support sanctions today. It made that clear months ago, before even joining the body. It can't slap Iran when Hezbollah -- a group founded and largely financed by Tehran -- controls half of its government. 
Turkey, the most prominent Muslim country on the council, also will obstruct. It made that plain last month, when it joined with Brazil to offer a diplomatic solution that does nothing but give Iran more time. 
Oh, and Brazil is also on the Security Council. With Turkey and Lebanon, that makes three countries representing important global blocs that won't support the resolution, making it far more likely that other nations will ignore or subvert it. 
Bottom line: Obama's diplomacy wound up with less support at the UN than the much-maligned George W. Bush approach, which united the Security Council three times on Iran sanctions. Worse, Obama left enough holes in the sanctions achievement to drive through a truckload of uranium. 
Nor is the UN the only place for diplomacy. Yesterday, top officials from 22 Asian countries gathered in Istanbul -- and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joined Turkey and China in the campaign to isolate and ostracize Israel, denouncing its actions in last week's flotilla incident singling out its nuclear program for criticism. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, was feted as one of the gathering's heroes. 
From the start, Obama's Iran policy relied on UN sanctions as the only stick in its effort to stop Iran's nuclear drive. But America paid a high price for a not-very-big stick. Meanwhile, Ahmedinejad's smile keeps widening. beavni@gmail.com