Not literally, no. What the US government is calling for is harder sanctions against Iran, after the recent unveiling of a maybe-vaguely-but-not-really theretofore-unknown Iranian nuclear facility. Sanctions are a lot of fun: “There are a variety of options still available,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said of the potential target list. He highlighted energy equipment and technology. Gates sounds like a kid in a candy store: it’s a “a pretty rich list to pick from.” Cool. Lots of ways to punish Iran for having a facility that probably isn’t even really illegal [see update IV. Greenwald’s writing has the consistency of cottage cheese but the man does his homework]. As Iran Affairs adds,
Here’s some facts to keep in mind: assuming this is in fact an enrichment facility, under the terms of Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA, Iran is only required to inform the IAEA of the existence of a nuclear facility 180-days prior to the introduction of nuclear material into the facility.
Now, an Iran in possession of nuclear technology is going to consume less oil and gas than an Iran not in possession of nuclear technology. That’s obvious enough. [The separate question of the return on capital investments in fossil-fuel production vs. nuclear production is more vexed]. An Iran with its infrastructure hammered by sanctions is also going to be able to contribute less gas and oil to world energy markets than an Iran with an undamaged resource-production-infrastructure. More banality. But less oil and gas on world markets vaguely and indirectly, but generally, means higher prices for oil and gas–in effect a regressive tax on poor American households.
What’ll be the effect of these sanctions on Iranian energy policy?
Sanctions out of the blue for punishment purposes, as much as I think they deserve it, probably don’t serve any useful purpose in resolving the issue,” said Thomas R. Pickering, a former under secretary of state who has held informal negotiations with the Iranians.…
Iran has proved resilient to sanctions, having weathered them in one form or another since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. And the political upheaval there creates a new complication: Western countries do not want to impose measures that deepen the misery of ordinary people, because it could help the government and strangle the fragile protest movement.
Or in other words, they’ll harm the people Western liberals fell in love with over the last couple months, while doing nothing to change Iran’s actions. The renegade pragmatic streak of state-department imperialists like Pickering is endearing: “as much as…they deserve it.” It’s a good thing they keep him around. Perhaps one day one of the pragmatic imperialists will note that picking a fight with Iran is probably a pretty bad idea, and that if we’re concerned for Iranian democracy, one component of that is looking to what Iranians actually want: nuclear power. The LA Times, having a schizophrenically honest moment, adds that
American intelligence officials said the site would not accelerate Iran’s ability to build a bomb. U.S. spy agencies believe that Tehran has not restarted work on nuclear warhead design, and remains one to five years away from producing highly enriched uranium suitable for a weapon.
And if Iran were to be developing nuclear armaments, so what? Maybe it’d be a bit of a deterrent against Israeli Iranophobia, manifest in a rabid desire to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and set off a regional conflagration. That sounds not-so-bad.
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