US Sanctions Against Iran to Disrupt Possible Consensus on Military Action

If the United States introduces a new set of sanctions against Iran, the issue of Tehran's nuclear program might never be resolved, a US expert says.

 

WASHINGTON, January 26 (Sputnik) — An international consensus for potential military response, if the ongoing P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran fall apart, will be impossible should the United States introduce a new round of sanctions, various US experts told reporters on Monday.

“If the talks fall apart because the world perceives that the United States passed sanctions that caused the Iranians to walk away while the negotiations were ongoing…you’ll have a collapse of the sanctions regime, and the idea that there will ever be a unified [international] position on military action will go out the window,” Goldenberg said in a Monday press conference on the Iranian nuclear negotiations.

US President Barack Obama has stated that all options, including military involvement, are on the table in dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran, in the event diplomatic negotiations fail. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear in a Monday press conference that “only a political diplomatic solution” is possible for addressing Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Military action against Iran is still “far down the road,” Goldenberg noted. For those in the United States and the European Union who have seriously considered military action against Iran, disrupting the P5+1 nuclear talks with new sanctions raises the likelihood of “never being able to credibly pursue military action if you want to,” the expert warned.

International policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, Alireza Nader told the press on Monday that sanctions relief for Iran will be a better inducement to negotiate a nuclear deal than increasing sanctions. New sanctions will only “reinforce the distrust” Nader said, adding the collapse of the talks on those terms could lead to “escalation from both sides” or “a long-term stalemate.”

Former senior staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Edward Levine added that efforts by members of Congress to force the Obama administration into a tougher posture in the Iran negotiations will create confusion among negotiators. Actions by Congress “will tend to cause even the Iranian negotiators to wonder who is calling the shots in Washington,” Levin said.

The United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and Germany restarted negotiations on a nuclear weapons agreement with Iran last week, following the November conclusion of a previous round of talks that failed to produce a final agreement.

The US Congress is currently threatening to impose new sanctions on Iran if the P5+1 talks fail to produce an acceptable outcome.