Great post from Dan Drezner today - bottom line is that Russia and China seem to be acting in their short-term interest, but detrimentally to their long-term interest in refusing to go along with sanctions/pressure against Iran.
[i]What are Russia and China’s end game on Iran?
Last year I questioned what Bush administration hawks saw as the end game in U.S. dealings with Iran. ( danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: Someone explain the hawks' plans to me )
After reading Elaine Sciolino’s excellent review of the current state of play regarding Iran in today’s New York Times ( On Nuclear Seesaw, the Balance Seems to Shift to Iran - The New York Times ), I’m going to have to put the same question to Russia and China:
[quote] Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is known for overheated, boastful pronouncements. So it was hardly a surprise earlier this month when he declared that despite demands from the United States and other countries that Iran stop enriching uranium, Tehran was pressing ahead and negotiations were out of the question.
"From our point of view," he said, "this subject is closed."
But in this case, Iran's intransigence is not only real; it also appears to be defeating attempts by the rest of the world to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions, at least for the moment....
[N]othing seems to be bending the will of Iran, which is flush with oil revenues. The incentive strategy, led by Javier Solana, the European Union�??s foreign policy adviser, has failed to entice Iran to stop enrichment in exchange for economic, political and technological rewards. So has the punishment approach, as Russia and China hold firm to the view that further pressure will only intensify the standoff.
In May, desperate to engage Iran, the six nations offered a brief freeze in further sanctions if Iran freezes its enrichment program at the current level, effectively dropping their demand that Iran stop enrichment altogether. But that "double freeze" proposal barely got Tehran�??s attention.
"The chosen strategy of pressure and engagement is not working," said one senior European official involved in the diplomacy. "As a result, you have a lot of people desperately banging on the door of the Iranians. All of them are coming back empty-handed."....
Russia has recently tried but failed to sway Iran to compromise. During a recent visit to Tehran, President Vladimir V. Putin was granted a rare audience with Iran�??s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Putin made no threats, but focused on the benefits that would flow to Iran, including the delivery of sophisticated nuclear technology, if it made some gesture on enrichment, according to officials familiar with the visit.
Iranian officials described the meeting as very friendly, but when Mr. Putin sent his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to Tehran, Mr. Lavrov received a frosty reception, and returned home frustrated, Russian, Iranian and European officials said.
Still, Russia prefers to make the next priority not more sanctions but winning Iran�??s cooperation on allowing wider inspections of its nuclear sites by the United Nations agency, Russian and Western European officials said.
China, whose trade with Iran is soaring, has taken what might be characterized as a passive-aggressive diplomatic approach.
It did not send a representative to a key meeting of the six powers in Brussels on Monday, causing the meeting to be canceled. The Chinese delegation also refused to attend the previous scheduled meeting of the group, to protest both a meeting Germany�??s chancellor, Angela Merkel, held with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, and the decision by the United States Congress to honor him. The Chinese are expected at Saturday's meeting.
The only negotiation with Iran that seems to be progressing is the limited one aimed at resolving the United Nations agency�??s questions about Tehran's past nuclear activity. Under a formal agreement last summer with the agency, Iran has begun to turn over documents and make various officials and former officials available for interviews.
As long as Iran is making progress on this front, the United States and its European allies are likely to have a difficult time persuading Russia and China to agree to further sanctions.[/quote]
As near as I can figure, China and Russia don’t want to think about the end game because the status quo benefits them enormously.
The status quo is a situation in which:
a) The US and EU are committed to work through the United Nations;
b) China and Russia hold leverage over any sanctions process; and
c) The uncertainty over Iran's possible nuclear program acts as a useful check against any further expansion of American or Israeli influence in the Middle East.
This is all well and good, and rational in the short run. The thing is, I’m reasonably sure that neither Russia nor China really wants Iran to develop a nuclear fuel cycle that is independent of any IAEA or UNSC strictures ( danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: The twin sins of Norman Podhoretz.... ) – which is what the status quo will lead to in a few years. Clearly, solving the problem now will be less costly than solving the problem later. And as much as China and Russia might disdain sanctions, I’ve seen zero evidence that inducements are having any effect either.
Question to Russia and China-watchers – what do they believe the end game is on Iran?
UPDATE: This Reuters story ( http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-iran.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin ) highlights another problem – as long as Iran believes that the great powers are not coordinated, they have no incentive to make any concessions:
[quote] Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said late on Thursday that nothing would deflect the Islamic Republic from its pursuit of nuclear technology and that Washington had “lost” in its attempts to stop them.
"The Iranian nation will never return from the path that they have chosen and they are determined and decisive to continue this path (to obtain nuclear technology)," Mottaki was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
The West says Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at building atom bombs. Iran, a major oil exporter, says efforts to enrich uranium are intended only to produce electricity.
Diplomats and analysts say Iran will see little reason to relent in its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment given that six big powers remain at odds over how soon to resort to more United Nations penalties and how harsh they should be.[/quote]