Obama's Iran Strategy Hits Great Wall of China

(Nov. 18) -- The Obama administration's shot at a win-win stratagem for reining in Iran's nuclear program looks more doomed than ever this week, raising doubts that sanctions against the country can be worked out -- and if enacted, whether they would work.

Obama's meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao yielded no apparent change to China's consistent opposition to broad sanctions against Iran. "The Chinese are sincere when they say they don't want another nuclear power in the Middle East," says Adam Segal, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But I haven't seen any suggestion that China is changing its mind on sanctions."

Yet a push for sanctions early next year seems more likely than ever as it becomes clear that Iran doesn't accept the terms for a novel nuclear fuel swap that were laid out in Geneva on Oct. 1.

With the support of partners Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, the Obama administration proposed that Iran ship 2,640 pounds of its low-enriched nuclear fuel abroad for further enrichment. The fuel would then be shipped back to Tehran for use in a research reactor that produces medical isotopes. For the U.S., the primary appeal of the deal is that it would deplete Iran's stock of available uranium, thus delaying by a year any efforts to enrich the fuel to weapons grade.

But in an interview with the Indian newspaper The Hindu on Monday, and another Wednesday with an Iranian news agency, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would not yield any of its controversial stock of low-enriched uranium until higher-grade fuel from abroad was delivered to Tehran. That sequence is almost certainly unacceptable to Washington and Paris, where French policymakers have taken a harder line than their U.S. counterparts.

That leaves a real prospect that the fuel swap won't happen, that Iran's enrichment efforts continue and that, nevertheless, the international community fails to punish Iran with sanctions that bite.

"The Obama administration's Iran policy is in free fall and bordering on implosion," says Flynt Leverett, a fellow at the New America Foundation and a member of President George W. Bush's National Security Council. He believes that despite Obama's posture of engagement, the administration hasn't offered Iran compelling trade-offs for opening up its nuclear program to greater international scrutiny.

What's more, even if China and Russia -- with financial and energy ties to Iran -- could be convinced to support sanctions, Leverett says they wouldn't work. "The idea that a country like Iran, which has undergone eight years of brutal war with Iraq and a decade of low oil prices, can be brought to heel through sanctions is fanciful," says Leverett.

Others aren't so quick to write off Obama's approach. "Let's not confuse the target: The problem is the Iranians," said one European diplomat. "They can't reach a decision, and they are in breach of their international obligations." The diplomat insists that the possible failure of the fuel swap didn't mean an end to dialogue with Tehran: "We can't wait for eternity, but we can until the end of the year." And after that? "I'm convinced we can hold up certain things that matter to Iran."

James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, isn't optimistic that Iran will accept the fuel-swap deal, but he is convinced that the attempt was still worth it. "The Obama administration's willingness to talk to Iran increases international consensus even if Iran turns down this deal," he says.

Acton argues that China has come a long way since it helped Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons in the late 1970s and 1980s. "China is shifting from a proliferator to a country that opposes proliferation," he says. "Beijing values the U.S. relationship and knows that Iran is important to the U.S., so it is amenable to deals."

The Europeans see evidence that Russia is coming around to supporting more sanctions, too. They point to Moscow's decision this week to again stall its work on the Iranian civil nuclear power station at Bushehr, citing technical problems. The reactor, under construction since 1995, was originally due for completion in 1999. Now it won't happen this year.

Still, Iranian officials exude confidence that their stalling tactics have paid off, yet again. "At one time, the Westerners could not tolerate even a few centrifuges," a senior adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Iranian news agency IRNA this week. "However, today, they are forced to accept Iran's nuclear advances."